Due to the film being “underestimated”, Bryan Bertino had a lot of creative freedom when directing and editing the film. The first cut of the film, edited by Kevin Greutert, was over 100 minutes long. After the first screening with a test audience, there were parts of the film that didn’t resonate well and so edits had to be made.
Part of this edit was a result of audiences not testing well to James grabbing his father’s gun too long after being tormented by the Strangers. Audiences believed this wasn’t realistic and that if this was really happening they would’ve grabbed a gun first. As a result, they had to cut the film so that they grab the gun earlier, but this came at the cost of at least 20-25 minutes of footage in between, lowering the runtime. Multiple scenes were cut, “good and bad scenes”.
When Bryan Bertino was letting the cast know of scenes that were being cut, he told them that the studio would include his directors cut on the DVD, something which unfortunately never happened.
A scene that was removed as a result of the cuts made was a heart-to-heart conversation between James and Kristen about their relationship and James’ proposal. According to Kevin Greutert the scene “was long” and had “great performances”, but again due to audience reactions in test screenings it had to be cut as audiences didn’t see it realistic that they would waste time talking about this when they’re being attacked by the Strangers.
In the cut of the movie we got, when Kristen is crawling back to the house after being attacked in the barn, she sees that James’ car has been set on fire. We all believed it was The Strangers who did this, but in an original cut of the film it was actually James who did it.
James’ motive for this was to say a “fuck you” to The Strangers, but the scene was cut. Scenes of James going outside with the gasoline tank are still used in the film, but instead they are zoomed in so you can’t see him holding it. Additional audio was recorded and put in the scene that changed it so James was instead going out to the barn to get the radio. This scene was always planned but for later in the film.
If you look closely, you can still just barely see shots of the gasoline tank in James’ hand as he runs out of the house.
For the scene where Kristen grabs a drink from the kitchen and The Man in the Mask steps out from the hallway and watches her, producers had Bryan Bertino film an extra shot with a close-up of The Man walking into the house as a backup in case the scene didn’t work well. The scene worked well, and so the shot was repurposed for when Kristen is sitting in the backyard waiting for James to come back from the barn and The Man enters the house and watches her.
Fun Fact: the sound of Pin-Up Girl whispering “Hello” in the barn was actually the voice of Kevin Greutert’s wife.
The film was “supposed” to have a premiere, according to Laura Margolis, but this never wound up happening. Margolis believes this was due to the studio have a premiere for another film before The Strangers was released which was met very negatively and did not perform well.
In fact, they end up letting the film rest for a couple of years and considered not releasing it at all. They did end up releasing it and were not expecting it do well and it ended up making US$20 Million in the first weekend.
The ending to the film was longer, contained a lot more dialogue and we go to see a lot more of The Strangers.
The biggest points of the original ending were a build up to the unmasking and more dialogue between The Strangers and James & Kristen. The Strangers tie James and Kristen to chairs and asked them to pick a record which they put on the record player and told them they were attacking them because they were home, dialogue which was left in the film.
The reasons for The Strangers faces being removed was that the studio was interested in pursing sequels for the film. A representative was sent down to the editing room and told Bryan they had to cut out The Strangers faces so they could keep them mysterious for potential sequels. Bryan did not want to do this as the ending had been filmed with their faces being shown as the intention and there was not a lot they could do to cut around it. The studio considered re-filming the ending to make it work better but there was no time or money in the budget to do it, and so scenes had to be cut and the runtime of the ending made significantly shorter.
In the original ending, when Pin-Up Girl unmasks herself, she is revealed to be crying. This is not necessarily out of remorse, but because she knows what is coming next and she hasn’t quite come to terms with the fact that they’ll be murdering James and Kristen. Both The Man in the Mask and Pin-Up Girl struggled to kill James and Kristen, whereas Dollface had no issue and went right at it, likely being the most psychotic of the group and fitting with Kip Weeks’ theory that Dollface was the leader of the group.
Each Stranger took turns stabbing James and Kristen, and stabbed each of them three times. Pin-Up Girl at some point leaned down to James, kissed him on the head and whispered “I’m sorry”. After stabbing James and Kristen, The Strangers cleaned themselves up in the kitchen sink and then changed into James and Kristen’s clothes, which they are seen wearing at the end of the film.
They untie James and Kristen and the pair fall to the floor, lie down face to face and James dies whilst Kristen passes out. The Strangers head outside and Kristen crawls over to Mike’s phone which is ringing next to his dead body. She grabs the phone, and then The Man appears behind her as he left his mask behind. He takes the phone, compliments Kristen on a song she was singing which makes him “happy” and then leaves the house. We still got part of this scene, minus the dialogue.
Bryan Bertino intended for all of this to be released in his directors cut but this never came into fruition.
Bryan Bertino wrote a script for
The Strangers 2 not long after the original was released. There was a plan to make it, but companies kept changing hands starting with Universal selling off Rogue which was the company that produced the original movie. As companies and the IP for the franchise constantly changing hands, a deal could never seem to be made. Kevin Greutert tried pitching the idea of a sequel multiple times but was never successful, he also stated that he would’ve liked to have edited it.
There was a specific scene written in the original spec that Bryan Bertino wrote just for Laura Margolis as she has a self-confessed “girly” voice. This scene involved Pin-Up Girl tricking Kinsey into coming inside a trailer by posing as a little girl who was in trouble. This scene can be found in the original script posted on this site, however it was not included in Prey at Night.
It was intended for Laura Margolis, Gemma Ward and Kip Weeks to all reprise their roles as Laura Margolis was called multiple times letting her know that the sequel was going ahead, however the plan always went nowhere after she was called, and she was eventually recasted with Lea Enslin in
Prey at Night, as The Strangers needed to be pretty much the same age they were in the original.
Bryan Bertino was credited as a writer for Prey at Night, however he had no involvement with the re-write, instead being credited only for writing the original treatment with Ben Ketai then re-wrote into the script we got. Part of this re-write included removing the original opening which would’ve seen Kristen returning for the first 15 minutes where The Strangers would’ve found her and killed her.
Liv Tyler was open to returning and she also had an idea for a sequel where she would have recovered and then gone on a “Kill Bill” style rampage as she tried tracking The Strangers down and killing them. Liv would’ve come back for the planned opening where she would die and was even asked by Sonny Mallhi, a producer of the original film, if she wanted to direct the sequel, however she was not at a point in life where she was ready to direct a movie. She also revealed that she has not seen Prey at Night.
This information revealed in the interviews pretty much implies that Prey at Night is still a direct sequel to The Strangers, even if it took ten years to make.
